Lizard

Sirona winced as Arawn continued to look around.
“Practice?”
“Not people,” Arawn laughed. “I’m not going to send you to go up against another set of bandits. Part of the reason you went into a trance state was that you weren’t… comfortable with the idea of killing. I can only imagine you were triggered by the event. We have to work on that.”
Despite the amount of power she could wield in her trance states, it wouldn’t be enough against Anu. It would be best if she was fully in control of her faculties when they faced each other.
And learning the depths of her power was better than letting her powers overwhelm her.
“We’ll start small,” Arawn said, listening for the tell-tale rustling in the underbrush. “Now.”
Sirona frowned looking at him as he stepped back and pointed towards the underbrush.
“A creature, a lizard, is going to come from over there. It won’t be too strong, but you’ll have to kill it.”
Sirona frowned as the bushes parted and a large head came out followed by the lizard’s body. It lifted its snout and sniffed.
“Won’t it just go away?” Sirona asked, “I mean. The other one didn’t, but did it just feel threatened?”
Arawn laughed, leaping and taking a seat in the air.
“Giant lizards like to eat humans. It wasn’t threatened. It was hungry.”
Sirona’s heart lurched as it looked at her. Its eyes flashed with light and it rushed towards her. She dove out of the way, avoiding it but it circled and came after her.
Arawn watched her run from it a bit longer before shaking his head.
“You’re agitating it. Pretty soon it will start shooting energy beams at you.”
“What?”
The lizard’s mouth opened and began to glow. Sirona drew her sword and the blade lit up as it launched its attack. Rather than cutting through the beam, the sword drew the beam in and Sirona absorbed the attack.
Arawn clapped, “Good thinking. It’s better not to waste magic if you can.”
Sirona dodged out of the way as it rushed towards her again in a wild frenzy. It turned sharply and whipped its tail, smacking her across the clearing.
“Stop running from it, Sirona and attack. You want to kill Blodeu and Haron, but you can’t kill a lizard?”
“You think this is easier?”
“I would think killing a monster trying to eat you is a lot easier than killing a human, emotionally.”
Sirona didn’t want to agree, but she also didn’t want to kill it. The lizard chased her around, aiming its tail at her and firing beams of light at her until she was too tired to run any longer and the lizard seemed to be full of energy.
With a deep breath, she ran forward as it reared up on its back legs. She closed her eyes and swung. Her sword caught on the lizard’s body and she felt it fly away from her. She opened her eyes and saw it smack into a tree, virtually unharmed.
“We’re going to be here all day,” Arawn said. “Giant lizards can stay in a frenzied state for hours.”
“Hours?” She cried as the lizard turned and rushed back towards her.
She didn’t want to be chased around for hours by this thing. It reared up again and leaped towards her and she swung harder, channeling power through the blade. It shrieked in agony as warm wet goo splashed across her face and chest.
When she opened her eyes, the two halves of the body were still wiggling. She shuddered, feeling the darkness filling its gaze and the energy of its body seeping out into the air and the earth. She stumbled back a little horrified.
It wasn’t nearly as bad as draining the energy out of the surroundings, but it wasn’t as nice as taking energy from Arawn.
He clapped, “Good job. How do you feel?”
“Sticky,” she said immediately. “And… a little ill.”
He nodded, “Understandable.”
He waved his hand and she felt a wash of heady warmth drift over her, taking the sticky feeling away.
She looked down and found all the blood was gown.
“Is… that how your clothes stay so clean?”
He grinned, “I cycle my power throughout my body. Most of my clothes have benefitted from it. Try it. It’s handy.”
She followed Arawn away from the lizard’s corpse as she heard things in the underbrush heading towards it. A big, lumbering beast came out and grabbed one of the halves of the body.
“Wh-What is that?”
“Probably a bear,” he said absently. “They like giant lizards, but they’re too lazy to kill them.”
She swallowed, sheathing her sword as they continued through the forest. She tried not to be sick, and the farther away from the lizard’s corpse they got, the better she felt.
Soon, they broke through the forest and were looking up at mountains across a wide grassy plain.
“Where are we going?” She asked.
“I told you you could meet Taran if you wanted,” he said. “Have you changed your mind?”
Her heart leaped, “No. I just didn’t expect us to… go now.”
Arawn shrugged, “It was about time to check on the cranky old man. Believe me, he’ll be cranky when we get there. Don’t take it personally. He’s always a bit cranky.”
She laughed, “You talk about him as if you two are good friends.”
Arawn hummed, “I’ve known him for a long time. We understand each other. Once, before he got tired of coming along, we used to roam the continents…”
Sirona trailed along beside him, listening to him recount the adventures he’d been on with Taran. He sounded young and carefree as he spoke. His tone matched his appearance for a change and it made her happy.
She wondered if she would have a companion as old as Taran and have tales of adventure to talk about.
While it sounded like a great life, it seemed very empty.
As they cross the plain, heading to the forest at the base of the mountain, she wondered if Taran was the only other companion besides the one that he didn’t talk about much.
“Arawn.”
“Yeah?” He turned back to look at her. He smiled, “Boring you with my tales of adventure and youthful foolishness?”
“No.”
Sirona laughed, “I just wondered… why you aren’t… with someone?”
“With someone?”
“I mean, you’ve lived a long time. You have Taran and you had that other companion… Have you never considered a wife or something like that?”
Arawn blinked at her as if he had never considered it and she felt ridiculous.
“I’m just asking because you seemed kind of lonely and—”
“Are you applying for the position?”
Her face burned, “Th-That’s not what I meant, I just… I was just curious.”
He chuckled, “I’ll let it go for now, but honestly, I’ve never had a relationship last for very long.”
Sirona felt a bit put out by the statement. How long was very long in his eyes? A few days? Years? Months? And how many of these not-very-long relationships had he had? Would she be just another not-very-long relationship for him to have a story about later?
“No one’s ever truly wanted the position,” Arawn chuckled, “At least not for the right reasons and it’s a bit hard to cultivate such a relationship with someone with a much shorter lifespan.”
Sirona winced and shook herself. That was right. He’d been alive for centuries. How often would he have to have a new wife after the old one died if he had one at all? Everyone he may have known in his youth was probably long dead. She wondered if he even remembered their faces.
The sadness of such a life made her heart hurt. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to live long enough that people she’d grown to care for in Druid’s village or wherever she ended up grew old and died while she remained the same. She tried to imagine watching their children and grandchildren grow up and die. To watch someone’s line die out or the engravings on their tombstones fade.
It was horribly sad. She could almost understand why he didn’t seem to have many relationships.
Even if they were to be together, would she want to continue living on until the end of their lifespans assuming that hers was unnaturally long as well?
Her mind kept turning it over as they walked through the forest.
“Let me go!” A woman yelled then cried out in pain. Sirona’s heart lurched and she ran towards the sound to find a group of bandits. One of them was shoving a woman to the ground.
“Pretty feisty little thing,” he said. “I love it when they still have a bit of bite left in them.”
The others were jeering and leering at the display.
A group of women remained curled up in a cage nearby. Some were weeping softly and the others were staring elsewhere in silence.